my little over-achiever

[cellio]

At her checkup last week, Embla -- who's always been perfectly normal, medically speaking (I won't comment on personality) -- had lost weight and had an elevated heart rate. The vet who saw her did some routine blood tests, including the test for hyperthyroidism, which he suspected. (With hyperthyroidism, basically, the engine is constantly revving -- so appetite is normal but the cat loses weight, heart rate is high, and probably other stuff too.)

The relevant test here is something called T4. Normal is about 4 (I don't know 4 what). When Erik was diagnosed recently it was with a reading of 8.

Embla's was 70. My vet said she didn't know they went that high.

So, my instructions are to take the medicine we got for Erik (which is currently suspended for other reasons), and start giving it to Embla instead. She's only 11, so she's a good candidate for a permanent solution (radiation or surgery), but we have to do drugs first to make sure treatment doesn't cause other problems.

Edit: the test measures concentration of something (some enzyme, I think); the units are micrograms per deciliter. Not one I would have guessed. :-)

Comments

[cellio]

The lab always rechecks abnormal tests, and this was actually the second relevant test -- the first one, which is apparently less reliable but part of the standard screen, also came back very high, so they ran this to confirm.

Fortunately, getting the drugs into her has been easy so far: she'll eat almost anything. :-)